In Washington state, they’re transforming teachers.
You’ve heard the phrase “as American as apple pie;” might it one day rather reference a baked dish of privilege?
Such is the type of food for thought educators in the west were recently served.
As reported by DefendingEd.org, an anonymous teacher has provided information concerning the Tumwater School District’s schooling of teachers.
Hence, apply the word “alleged” to all of the below.
The source claims those overseeing young skulls of mush were shown a Privilege Pie chart.
Participants colored what applied to them.
Points of privilege were thus:
- White
- 18-64
- No Disability
- U.S.-Born
- Heterosexual
- Christian
- Upper/Middle Class
- Cisgender Male
The teacher recalls:
“The school district hired a lady as a consultant to train some teachers and then those teachers provided the training to us during our early release time. I was so upset because we have so much to do and I would really prefer to use that time to design effective instruction or communicate with families. Instead, I’m sitting there for 2 hours learning about how I am privileged because of my skin color and about micro-aggressions. Part of the training was a pie chart —the more we colored in, the more privileged we were. The less color you had on the pie chart, the less privileged you were. We were asked to examine our privilege.”
Soil for debate was rendered infertile:
“Because everyone was terrified to contribute to the discussion we were supposed to be having, lest we offend someone with one of the many micro-aggressions we had just learned about, the room was awkwardly silent for most of the time. The thing is, we started with these norms about respect of others’ views, etc., but we all knew darn well that if anyone like me shared their views on it, we would be shunned.”
According to material obtained by Parents Defending Education, the instruction announced, “We’re white, we’re interested. How do we get started?”
Among one slide’s itemized activities were “discussions of white privilege,” “examining implicit bias,” and “equity team.”
The difference between Traditional Justice and Restorative Justice was also made clear.
Traditional Justice
Justice directed at offender, victim ignoredRestorative Justice
Offender, victim and school all have direct roles in justice process
Perhaps most interesting was the Pyramid of White Supremacy.
At the tippy-top: Genocide, Mass Murder.
Below that:
- Violence
- Calls for Violence
- Discrimination
- Veiled Racism
- Minimization
- Indifference
“Minimization” components of said supremacy include denial of white privilege, “Why can’t we all just get along?” “Not all white people…” and “We all belong to the human race.”
“Indifference” examples are avoiding confrontation with racist family members and remaining apolitical.
“Veiled Racism” counts for white supremacy the following ways:
- paternalism
- claiming reverse racism
- cultural appropriation
- colorblindness
Tumwater is certainly not the only offerer of such ideas.
As for colorblindness being immoral, even Cartoon Network is on board:
In some ways, virtue has been turned on its head. What once was hailed as righteous is now something to be shamed and cast out.
As I covered last month, amid staff training, Google employed white supremacy pyramids as well.
Among implicated genocidal ingredients: Ben Shapiro and Donald Trump.
As for education in general, the ubiquity of news stories calling to KKK-ish calamity leads me to wonder if academics much exist anymore.
If teaching is so concerned with gender and white supremacy, is there a lot left for what school was designed to actually teach?
How about English and math?
These days, it seems instead of sentences being diagrammed, white racism is.
And the primary thing being divided…is us.
Hopefully, kids are still learning to think and to thrive — despite the threat of mass murder.